old question: detect evil trump invis?

[Salthorae]

You can see an invisible creature's spell auras with Arcane Sight, including the Invisibility spell.

So do attacks against that invisible caster/creature still suffer the 50% miss chance since you can see the moving magical aura?

Ooo, I just thought up an "eviL" idea for a DM's NPC... Invisibility on an object that is roughly humanoid shaped(animated or not) with Nystul's Magic Aura to emulate the magic or just make it an evil object of some sort depending on what effect you're trying to get. Then the real NPC is invis with nondetection up as well... Surprise!

That would teach those PC's to rely too heavily on their detect spells to see invisible opponents

 

[James McMurray]

So do attacks against that invisible caster/creature still suffer the 50% miss chance since you can see the moving magical aura?

Yep, there's still a miss chance. You've pinpointed his location, but not seen him.

That would teach those PC's to rely too heavily on their detect spells to see invisible opponents

Or you could just have the Greater Invised enemy psring attack to slap the wizard in the face. Detect spells are the last resort for finding somehting invisible, and won't work if the target has any idea what's going on.

 

[Mistwell]

A fist full of sand will be more effective than detect magic at precisely locating an invisible creature. No invisible creature is going to wait three rounds in the same spot for you to locate their square anyway.

 

[starwed]

Keep in mind that Detect Magic isn't vision based. You're not "seeing" the auras, you're detecting them.

 

[James McMurray]

Same basic effect though, at least in this case.

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

Ok, That's kinda what I thought - but what happens if you have an invisibility with Nystul's undetectable aura on it? (If have an idea for magic item/metamagic feat here is part of reason I am asking.)

IIRC you need a will save to "pierce the veil" of Nystul's Undetectable Aura.

 

[James McMurray]

Is that the same as Magic Aura from the SRD?

Magic Aura is object only, and Invisibility is creature only, so they'd be hard to combine. But assuming you did, I don't think Magic Aura would hide the Invisibility spell. Magic Aura makes it register as a nonmagical object, it doesn't mask all auras. If you did rule that it covered all auras, then the will save is only applicable if they cast Identify or a similar spell on it.

You could combine it with nondetection to force a caster level check. This one definitely works against Detect Spells, although it's 3rd level instead of 1st.

 

[Salthorae]

I'd just like to throw this out there as it is an off-shoot of a discussion going on right now between True Seeing and Nondetection.

The Nondetection spell on your invis creature would force a Caster Level check to even be able to use the detect evil/magic on an invis creature Check out the spell desc.

Hehe so all it takes to foil a 1st level spell is a 2nd level spell and a 3rd level spell combined.

Also Mistwell - I can think of situations where the creature/PC is invisible because it doesn't want to/can't move w/o attracting the notice of the PC's (or NPC's). Plus, if it's a Spell-like Ability the invis creature won't necessarily KNOW that a Detect spell is about to be used against it...

EDIT: Shoot James, ya beat me there with the Nondetection!

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

A Magical aura isn't an "object"? I'm thinking the undetetcable aura version must be targeted on a magical aura. For My question, the False aura version isn't really a factor.

 

[James McMurray]

Can you touch a magical aura? If yes, it might qualify as an object IMO. If no, it doesn't matter whether it's an object or not, because Magic Aura requires a touched object.

Personally, I'd say that auras are not objects.

"Quick, somebody cast Read Magic so I can Polymorph any Object it into a critter with infinite hit points!"